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Really? Me?

| cheriarmour

You really never know where teaching and fitness is going to take you, right?  I was a total slob kabob in college, and I blink, it’s like 5 years later, and I’m in love with what I do.

Which brings me to this.

A few months back, I was invited to speak at St. Mary’s School, an all-girls boarding school here in Raleigh.  It’s so interesting.  The woman who invited me to speak has taken a lot of my pump classes, and felt like I would be great to speak to the girls as a “woman in fitness”.  What she didn’t know asking me is that, one, that I love working with that age group (high schoolers), and I really gravitated toward this group at camp.  I still get Seventeen Magazine, am obsessed with Katy Perry and Justin Bieber, and am routinely mistaken for about 10 years younger than I am.  I hope that is a compliment to my skin, and NOT evident of what people think of my maturity level.  Ugh.

But anyways, all that is to say, I relate to this group really really well, and I’m so, so excited to speak to them, but I’m also 100% freaked out at the fact that someone would want me to speak to their kids.

I’m not sure what to say.  I drink.  I shower as little as society will allow.  I would prefer to spend all my time in a bikini if it is over 80 degrees.  I swear.  Like a lot.  And I’m not sure exactly why Caroline thought of me to speak to the girls.  But I’m honored.  And I hope I say the right things, the things that high school girls need to hear.

What DO high school girls need to hear?

What would I have wanted to hear in high school?

  • Always bring a sweater.  You will always be cold.
  • Start taking care of your body NOW.  Don’t let things creep up on you.  When you get to college, your mom will not be there to remind you to balance your meals.  BALANCE YOUR MEALS.  That means eat something not fried for breakfast.  Eat something sensible for lunch.  Sushi or a salad works.  Same goes for dinner.  Do at least 20-30 minutes of activity today.  You start that shit early, and you will be set.
  • Watch the news when you get ready for school/work.  You don’t want to be that idiot that knows nothing when folks are talking.  Don’t just rely on fake Facebook articles to keep yourself informed.
  • Do something that makes you laugh every single day.
  • I struggle with this one.  Get up early and do something.  Get to bed at a reasonable time.  Again, I struggle with this one but I have never ever regretted getting up early to get stuff done.
  • If you’re interested in it, go for it.  Just do it.  Don’t let your boyfriend, or your mom, or your friends talk you out of anything you have in your mind!

**So update alert.  I wrote this post prior to going out to school.  I went to school to speak to the girls on Tuesday, and it was an absolutely amazing, incredible experience, and I definitely, definitely would LOVE to do it again.

The engagement started with me getting a chance to see St. Mary’s School, a girls boarding AND day school here in Raleigh, NC.  The campus was really pretty, and reminded me of college.  Caroline, who had arranged for us to be there met me along with some students who were enjoying lunch.  I grabbed lunch in their dining hall, which was really nice, and included a painted portrait of Kylie Jenner, which I totally appreciated.

Caroline set me, and the three other women on the panel up in the performance hall, and we got started by introducing ourselves, what we did, and a little reason why we were sitting on the panel.  The women were great.  One was a career counselor.  Another, a director of a non-profit that paired horses with kids who had faced trauma, and still another directed at a local art gallery here in Raleigh.

And then there was me.

When it came my turn to introduce myself, I did what I do best, and I had everyone spread out and lead them through a movement and breathing exercise.

The girls, extremely impressive girls, asked wonderful questions, ans were highly engaged.  They were poised, beautiful, and confident, and I felt absolutely honored to be in their presence.  After the session, I got a chance to hug some of the girls and talk to them, and I was, and still am blown away by what they did.

I would love to guest speak once again, and hope I brought to the girls, a fraction of the joy they brought me on Tuesday.

Happy Friday, y’all 🙂

xoxo ❤

What makes me feel like me!

| cheriarmour

Yesterday, after work when I realized I could sit at my desk for like another 3 hours and still not have everything I wanted done done, I felt completely overwhelmed.  I’d promised myself I would get out of my chair and hop on the treadmill for a few minutes, and when it came time, I was trying to convince myself that I didn’t need to, instead, that I could just answer more emails.

I was irritable, my throat was tight, and I just wanted to hide in a fort of my own making.  Like sheets and stuff.  Those were the best, right?  Except my mom would never let us sleep in them.  BOO.  So I hopped on the treadmill for a few minutes, and the funk, the fog, started to lift.

While I was on there, I got to thinking about things that make me feel most like me, things that ground me.

  • Painting my nails.  

IMG_3192I don’t have a ton of time, nor do I have a ton of money.  The act of painting my nails itself is fine, and I’ve perfected the art of gelling my nails so I get a little more than a day or two of wear out of my nails.  But something about having my nails done makes me feel so pulled together, even if I’m just wearing tights and a tank top.

  • Running…after the first few miles.  I think running can be tricky for me because I feel like such a fat idiot for the first few moments.  But once I hit my stride – once I sort of hit a good rhythm – which can be after 4 miles during a long run, or after 10 minutes – I feel like a lot of problems are a LOT more solve-able, and I can break things down in my head.  I’ve saved myself (and the world) from many a meltdown.
  • Doing creative things.  I like to write. I like to draw.  Sometimes paint.  Performing live.  And whenever I do any of these things, I start to feel most at peace and like myself.  During the time when we were engaged, I struggled really heavily with anxiety, and being able to look at paper, draw, address envelopes, and put things together really grounded me.
Card
I LOVE writing letters too.
  • Teaching classes.  I’ll let you in on a little secret.  Fitness instructors don’t always want to teach.  But just after the warm up, something takes over me, and I recognize my role as the exercise tour guide is exactly where I want to be.  I’ll smile, dance, touch, and encourage, and I feel like a million bucks after.
  • Cooking for people.  This also falls into the same category as creative stuff.  But I feel like I have purpose when I can cook for people – my husband, my brother, and his roommates, and have them enjoy it.  It’s the weird maternal part of me that I didn’t really think I had.
  • Being honest with my husband.  Spending time with my husband.  Holding Austin’s hand.  Playing and being silly with Austin.  Rubbing his back.  Having him rub my feet.  Doing our funny jokes, which are maybe only funny to us.  Going to the beach with him.  This is me.  This is us.  I love this stuff.  And I’m so happy that he can help me get both feet on the ground, when sometimes they feel like they don’t go.

So this is me.  This list is by no means exhaustive.  I will maybe keep adding to this and referencing this post.  But I want to know.  What makes you feel like you?  

 

9/11/2001

| cheriarmour

September 11th, 2001, I was a freshman in high school at Providence High in the southern part of Charlotte.  I remember waking up that morning, flipping the radio to News Talk 1110, and thinking, “Hm.  Today is just not a good news day at all!”  I try to never let that thought creep into my head.  My superstitious fear is that when I think that, that something bad will happen in the world.

Let me back up.  So I was born in Brooklyn, New York.  My father worked for Lehman Brothers (which isn’t a thing anymore), and my mother worked as an admin.  Except they used to call the admins secretaries which is kinda rude and not PC anymore I don’t think.  Anyways, my parents worked in the city.  Some of my earliest memories involved my dad taking us to his office.  They must have looked at him like he was crazy, a young 20-something with three kids, at least two that would come to his office, enamored of Jacqueline, a pretty lady who was nice to us and let us color and gave us snacks while my dad did work things.  Daddy took us to the office sometimes.  We rode on the train.  Once we moved to Long Island and he started commuting into the city for work, I remember driving him to the train station, our footie pajamas shoved into our sneakers.  On weekends, my mom would go into work, and my dad took us to Taco Bell, to Chuck-e-Cheese’s, to play tennis, and apple picking.

I remember when Daddy went to interview for First Union in a place called North Carolina.  We left all of our friends in the city behind, and started a new life in North Carolina, where people were friendly and had really funny accents.

We settled in, and since this was before a time of email, LinkedIn, and Facebook, when you moved, you moved, and hoped to see friends at weddings, or years later when you returned to New York to act like tourists (which we did in 1999).

So back to it, on September 11th, 2001, Mr. Greenleaf, my second-period biology teacher said something to the effect that we should turn on the TV because “something’s going on.”  At this point, none of us knew how serious anything was.  But he wheeled the television in, and among the clearest, bluest skies I’d ever seen, was the horrifying sight of thick black plumes of smoke cutting the peace in the skies.

I don’t remember the second plane hitting.  I know I must have seen it, because we watched it happen real time, and papers gracefully fluttering to the ground, juxtaposed against the soupy smoke.  But I remember the horror of realizing family and friends were near or around ground zero at the time.  My grandmother, who died on September 11th two years ago, was shopping.  A little old lady shopping, and no one could get a hold of her.  My Uncle Gregory, a street vendor, wasn’t in touch.  Friends of my fathers still worked in the towers.  And because the phones were jammed and no one really knew what had happened or what was going on.  Who was alive, and who hadn’t made it.

A few weeks later, my father dug out a tape, Stevie Wonder’s album, Characters, and told us that his friend Jim, who’d given him the tape, had died in the towers, leaving behind his pregnant wife.  My uncle, a firefighter, lost not one or two, but many brothers that day.  And that was the day that many of us realized that the world was not such a friendly place.

I wish I had a message here, that I could dispense to you some nugget of wisdom.  But what happened was horrible.  Disgusting.  Hateful.  And I think that sometimes it’s okay to not have the words, the answers.  Because I think when something like this happens, maybe there isn’t an answer, right?

9.11.01

Never forget.

Frippin’ it

| cheriarmour

First off, I needed a little breaky from the blog.  Last week shaped up to be really really crazy, and I just needed to take a minute off.  No worries though, I’m back, so you can read all my riveting lifelong updates.

Quick recap of last week.  Work.  Work.  I ran 17 miles on Wednesday.  We started out in Umstead, then I finished up around the house.   Director’s meeting.  Friday we drove to Fripp Island, an island off the coast of South Carolina, and met up with (mostly) Elon friends.

Remember our trip over a year ago to Fripp?

We headed back out there after Kelly invited us early in the summer to spend time at her family’s home.  When she invited us, it seemed super far away, but now I’m sitting here the day after we returned from the trip and I’m really sad.  Not only is our little escape from reality over, but the summer is unofficially over.  Time is rocketing past us.  And I’m really sad about it.

We arrived on the island on Friday night, after we packed up and rushed straight from work in anticipation of the weekend.  By the time we got there, the weekend was in full swing, and it took us only the amount of time to unpack the car for us to be relaxing on the floor of the home to join our friends.  We drank, looked at stars, and danced before turning in for the night.  I actually slept well!

Saturday morning, we woke up, and as everyone had brought food to cook, we started in on a breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and tons of fresh fruit.  After we stuffed our faces, we changed into bikinis, packed a cooler, and headed out to the beach, which was absolutely perfect.  I mean, perfect.  We ended up spending most of the day at the beach, and our friends (who actually live in Raleigh in real life) were in charge of dinner, which was meatless tacos and lots of drinks.  We started to lounge, when Kelly suggested we head to the bar (pretty sure there’s only one on the island). We ran into her cousin and a friend there, and proceeded to ever-so-slightly crash a wedding (the bride was sitting outside with the wedding party), and play yard games until it was way, way past time to head home.

On Sunday, there was a whole lot of bike-riding, coffee, and lounging, to the point that as I sit here, my bum still hurts from riding all over.  I was in charge of dinner on Sunday night, and cooked a spicy black bean soup.  I must have anticipated that 20 people instead of 10 were going to be there, because we ended up with a huge amount of leftovers that I ended up scrambling to find storage for so we could take some home.  We went to the bar again for a really chill night, and ended up in bed in anticipation to run or bike in the morning.

Labor Day, I sort of woke up sad knowing that we would have to leave later.  I got out of bed and laid on the porch, sleeping and reading and listening to the rain until we ate and let it finish so we could ride bikes until it was time to leave.  Because we’d all brought food to cook (seriously, we did not eat out a single time while we were there which was nice on the budget!), we ran around for like an hour trying to figure out what we were going to do with all the beer, wine, liquor, and food I made, and ended up pouring it into an orange juice container, a mason jar, and a container containing some greek yogurt to be able to get it home.  Which was all well and great because I ended up eating it for dinner that night.

Here are some photos from the spectacular weekend!

IMG_3198IMG_3199IMG_3204

Ah.  How was your Labor Day Weekend?

One Year

| cheriarmour

Austin and I have been married for a year.

One beautiful, whirlwind of a year.

The year Austin and I started dating, I was working at camp in Pennsylvania.  One of the kids named Brenda told me she was going to read my palm.  I don’t really believe in that stuff.  Or I say I don’t.  It scares me a little bit.

Brenda looked at me.

“People tell you you have a ton of energy right?  They don’t know how you do what you do.  Your job is gonna be like that.”

I assumed she was talking about me teaching fitness classes.  That one was pretty self-explanatory.  I mean, she had probably heard that around camp, right?

“You’re dating someone right?  You don’t really like him.”

Ok.  I wasn’t sure how she knew that.  But she was right.  I was dating someone.  And it wasn’t really going well.  I think he sort of liked having me around.  But it was mostly a waste of time.  He would stand me up, drank a lot, and told me once that he would like to “have sex with a Latina.”  [Disclaimer: I would NEVER fetishize a group that way, those were actually his exact words.]

“You’ve already met the man you’re going to marry.”

I had no idea who she was talking about.  No idea who she could have been talking about.  But I was a little weirded out.

A month or two later, I found myself out with the campus rec crew.  We drank a ton.  I ended up seeing an ex that night.  But somehow, Austin and I forged a friendship, and what began as a few beer dates where we would talk, started to turn into something more.

“Would you date a white guy,” he asked one night.

I shrugged.  “Yea, sure!”

One date.  Then another.  Then another.  And almost 5 years later, we were cutting a teeny white cake on a table in Asheville, laughing, rapping, and wondering where a year of marriage had gone.

I don’t know what to say except this.  If you have found the person you’re going to marry and you’re considering it?  Go for it.  Jump in with both feet, be honest, and enjoy the gift that is marriage.

I’m certainly not one to preach, but God, the Universe, my father and my brother (who taught me what a real man should be) gave me an incredible gift in this marriage.

Happy one year to us.

Wedding Cake

One week with a nutritionist, marathon training, and leg cramps!

| cheriarmour

Hola hola hola!

First, look at these really cute earrings one of my instructors gave me!Arrow EarringsI saw her wearing these cute delicate earrings on her last week, and I went looking online for them, but couldn’t find exactly what I wanted.  I liked them a lot, and I emailed her about them.  I was over the moon yesterday when they popped up on my desk.  Isn’t that sweet?

***

So remember I met with a nutritionist last week, right?  It’s been really really cool, to take some of the things that she’s said, and put them into practice.  I find that having someone to be accountable to really helps me to be super conscious of my choices.

After meeting with her, talking about food colors, and talking about my history with food and everything, she had me set a few goals for the next 4-6 weeks.

My short term goals for the next 4 weeks are to:

  1. Get to bed at or before 11pm Sunday-Thursday.  I know this is aggressive, so I want to start by getting in bed at a good time at least 2x/week. Typically my husband and I don’t even get into bed until about midnight most nights, and wake extremely tired.
    1. No playing on devices after 11pm. This includes iPads, iPods, and iPhones.
    2. If we want to have sex, we need to start earlier than midnight. This means on sex nights we need to be in bed even earlier than 11pm.
    3. I will engage in calming activities before bed**.  Reading a book, taking a bath, or doing some restorative yoga exercises.
  2. Get up earlier/get my workouts completed in the morning at least 2x/week.  Because I get to bed so late, I often feel too exhausted to get my workouts in in the morning, and end up having to squeeze them in around my classes or before the day ends.
    1. Get to bed at or before 11pm Sunday-Thursday.
    2. Lay out my workout clothes before I go to bed. **
    3. Provide myself with some kind of incentive, like coffee or tea, if I get up and complete a workout early.
  3. I want more green stuff on my plate for lunch and dinner.  I often find myself just packing whatever from the night before and completely forget a salad, some green beans, some kale, etc.
    1. I can’t eat my main course until my veggies are finished. Silly, but it works for me J
    2. If I want to eat more, I need more veggies, not more main course.
    3. Pack something green with my lunch, even if I’m eating something terrible, like a slice of pizza or a lean cuisines.

I’ve been really focusing on color and more veggies and was surprised how much better I feel like I looked in the span of a week!

Tummy Shot

I think the veggies are really really reducing bloat?  Could be my imagination though, but I like what my imagination is doing 🙂

***

And finally, marathon training is in full swing (even though I don’t want to talk about it because I’m still traumatized by what happened at Greensboro.  I just want to run Chicago and have a nice time.  That’s all I ask.

But after 15 extremely humid miles yesterday, I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night.  My legs felt restless and tingly, and I repeatedly had to stretch before I finally fell asleep around 1 or 2.

Leg CrampsI picked these up from Harris Teeter, but ultimately, I think I’m going to pick up some Sports Legs off of Amazon, since a lot of folks in my trail and ultra running group have stated they have the same problem, and recommended this.

Okay, this is all a mouthful.

How was your week?  

Trying something new: my visit with a registered dietitian!

| cheriarmour

One of the perks of my wonderful work is that I get free personal training (which I take full advantage of) and visits with a registered dietitian, which I took advantage of starting with a visit that I made yesterday morning.

When I told my mom that I was going to see an RD, she was pretty shocked.  I’m perceived in my family as kind of the weird one who eats really crunchy weird stuff, and as a result, my mom didn’t think there was a need for me to visit with her – but because the visit was free, and because I felt like there were things I could learn from her, I decided to sign up with her and visit yesterday.

I think a lot of times, when you go to see a nutritionist, folks assume that you’re in it to lose weight, but there was more in it for me, and in the days leading up to the visit, where I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  I knew these things:

  • That my sweet tooth is a little louder than I’d like to admit.
  • We could potentially be talking about kids in the next few years, and I’m interested in being in really great shape to get pregnant, continuing in good health throughout my pregnancy, and returning to good shape after having a baby, and I could get help with that.
  • I’d like to have more energy – wake refreshed and ready to do stuff, rather than wanting to cut my own fingers off when I wake up in the morning.

So I was a little nervous to see Katherine (Katherine is the RD), because I as afraid she might be judgey, or condemn some of the unhealthy decisions I make.  I DO eat well, but I really enjoy my diet coke and my candy.  And it’s never like I feel like it would be impossible to give those up, but I haven’t.  But I was really pleasantly surprised at a few things that we got out of our first visit.

Similarly to a good therapist, Katherine did a lot with questions – but not yes/no questions.  Questions that involved me talking…a lot.  I hope I didn’t come off as neurotic as all, but I did talk a lot.

I was really happy that Katherine didn’t tell me to do…or NOT do anything.  She really listened.  And suggested.  And recommended.  But there were no demands.

Katherine allowed me to set my own goals, and didn’t set any for me.  I am going to share my goals with you for sure, but wanted to share with you my experience with an RD.

Have you ever visited a registered dietitian?  What was your experience like?

Mine was inspiring, refreshing, and a reminder.  No matter how awesome you eat, how many miles you run, or how many kombuchas you drink, there is always, always something to be learned from someone like Katherine.  And I really appreciate the chance to get to learn something from someone who’s better at it than I am!

DCAC Fitness Convention

| cheriarmour

First off, big shout out to my summer home, Camp Pocono Trails, who started color war this week.  Camp is the best thing ever, you guys already know that.  But Color War is by far, one of the best parts of camp.

***

So, I’ve finally had a chance to rest and compose myself after DCAC fitness conventions.  All it took was about 4 naps in the back seat of my Kia, one afternoon out by the pool, and a trip to Shake Shake for a grilled cheese with tomato to start to feel like myself again.

In this photo, I was actually in the process of driving home, and I was starting to fall asleep. I pulled over at a rest stop in Virginia where a lot of families were, locked my doors tight, and crawled into my backseat where I have a dark tint on my windows and managed to sleep for an entire hour.
In this photo, I was actually in the process of driving home, and I was starting to fall asleep. I pulled over at a rest stop in Virginia where a lot of families were, locked my doors tight, and crawled into my backseat where I have a dark tint on my windows and managed to sleep for an entire hour.

So for those of you guys who are wondering what the heck one does at a fitness convention, think about a convention that you might go to on any other subject. Basically, for an entire weekend, fitness professionals converge on a large space. So my first one was at NC State’s gigantic fitness complex. This one was at a hotel. And basically, what we do is we dedicate the weekend to learning. We go to sessions, sometimes a live class followed by a really short breakdown of what was done, and of course, some lectures regarding a lot of fitness trends, nutrition, and combating obesity.

A few of the sessions I took/observed?

  • A Marital Fusion Cardio Kickboxing Class.  I described this one briefly over the weekend, but I went back and took the session again early on Saturday morning.  It was awesome, and I was all in.  By the end of the session I was absolutely dripping, and had to change my clothes.
  • A Barre Less Class.  This class broke down teaching a Barre class without an actual barre.  The girls were extremely talented, and at least one was a ballerina at one point.  It was awesome, and I found myself stealing a few of the moves for my toning class when I returned.
  • A Schwinn session that was hybrid lecture, and practical class. The class focused on the SAFE way to incorporate toning into cycling class.  I’ve been Schwinn licensed for about 5 years, and haven’t used it a ton, but I really do believe that Schwinn is one of the best formats for indoor cycling there is.  I have been to Soul Cycle, and really enjoyed it, as well as Flywheel, and the music is great, but safety is often a concern I’ve had (as well as the price), so this session really addressed these concerns well, and when I subbed a cycling class today, I incorporated some of what I learned in the session in today’s class.  Instead of having folks rapidly in and out of the seat while peddling away at some questionable speeds, we incorporated about 10-15 minutes of strength AFTER we got them off the bike, and it made a whole world of difference!

So overall, DCAC was totally a good investment.  Next year, I will plan to go, and will take more of my instructors with me.  I plan to pack a few pairs of better shoes (running shoes on the carpet just won’t cut it) some body/face wipes, and sign up more strategically for sessions without wiping myself completely out.

Also – maybe this time I won’t forget my makeup bag?  I flinched when I saw myself in my front facing camera offhand on Friday morning…

Yep, this was about what I saw.
Yep, this was about what I saw.

What plans do you have for THIS weekend?

Reader Question!

| cheriarmour

So I had a great question pop up in the comments a few days ago, and I thought that you guys could benefit from the answer!

Hi!
I’m a borderline overpronator with flat-ish feet. I’m not a runner, but I go for Zumba classes 3-5 days a week. I’m looking for new shoes to avoid the knee pain I seem to have after classes these days.
Would you recommend the transcend for Zumba I wonder? Or does it have too much traction for dance?
Thanks a ton!

First off, this is a great question, and I definitely encourage all of you guys, if you have questions for me, about anything, to ask. If I DON’T know the answer, lord knows I will try and do my best to find an answer for you!

And if you’re at all wondering what my qualifications are to even answer this kind of question, I have taught group fitness for almost 6 years now (eek), since January of 2010 officially with NC State, and I have worked for Fleet Feet Raleigh for a long time, where we are trained to assess and prescribe, so to speak, the best shoe for your most comfortable run.

Now, before you go and buy a new show for whatever activity you are doing, figure out what you will be doing with the shoe.  If you are a runner, you should be running in a running shoe.  If you are a tennis player, a tennis shoe.  Same for playing basketball.

But what do you wear if you find yourself teaching or taking a ton of classes in studios, like a Zumba, Cardio Dance, Step, or Kickboxing class?  A lot of folks tend to assume that you can just wear a running shoe for something like that, but that can be really tricky for two reasons.

  1. Running shoes are designed to go front and back, not side-to-side, or laterally.  There is a guidance line built right down the center of a running shoe that keeps that shoe wanting to move front to back.  So for a salsa, mambo, or any other move that you find yourself doing in a lot of studio classes that are NOT a bootcamp, the shoe is literally fighting you every step.
  2. Running shoes are designed to grip, and that gripping motion will tear up your knees and joints when you fight the traction and hit pivots, or movements similar to this one.  

So what’s a studio queen to do?

There are actually shoes designed for this specific thing.

Reebok Dance Ryka Dance

 

Both of these are available online – the first is a Reebok dance shoe, and the second a Ryka shoe.  I would link you to it buy Reebok and Ryka ain’t offered to pay me for it so I’m trusting you all to be able to find this without too much trouble.  But Reebok, Ryka, and sometimes Nike are the places I tend to head when searching for a good studio shoe.  The main difference between this shoe and a running shoe is that these are less grippy, hug your foot, and often feature a pivot point, a point right on the ball of the shoe that allows you to effectively pivot, cha-cha, mambo, or anything else.

Put any other shoe questions you may have in the comments!